


The Benefits of Old Age

by Team_Two_Cats



Series: Suikovember 2020 [2]
Category: Suikoden I, Suikoden Series (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Old People Being Old, baths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27616195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Team_Two_Cats/pseuds/Team_Two_Cats
Summary: The elders of Suikoden I enjoy Elder Bath Time and shoot the breeze as a younger upstart demands admittance.Day 18 Suikovember 2020 Prompt: Elders Hanging Out
Series: Suikovember 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019115





	The Benefits of Old Age

The baths are lush. The waters…hot.

“You’re sure about the temperature?” Sansuke asks. “It’s well outside what I’d consider…safe.”

Crowley waves him off. “I once let the lava of an erupting volcano roll over my feet, and it didn’t feel peel the callouses off. Let your elders have a moment.”

Hellion chuckles as Sansuke bows and exits quickly before the mage’s electric gaze. “You shouldn’t tell him things like that, you know? He’ll believe you.”

“As well he should!” Crowley says, but laughs as he sinks back into the waters. “What’s the point of being old if you can’t convince young people of ridiculous things? In my day, giant lizards walked the earth and ate everything third person they came across.”

“In my day, all medicine had to be injected directly into the eyeball,” Liukan says. “Luckily, I developed a way to administer it orally. So what if it tastes foul. You’d rather I get out my needle and syringe?”

“Back in my day, we had to hold the hot metal with our bare hands,” Mace says. “So that every blacksmith’s first order of business was to craft a metal hand for themself. Luckily, I discovered how to make a special fabric that protects against heat, so now most blacksmiths get to keep both hands.”

“When I was young,” Fukien says, “initiates to the temple had to go everywhere walking on their hands. Fetching water from the spring on the top of the mountain was particularly odious. So when I became master, I stopped that practice. Yes, we must fast, and practice physical discipline, but would you rather still have to walk everywhere upside down?”

“Before I was made full knight,” Maximillian says, “there was a race of giants who liked to eat only the left ears of humans. They’d make whole cities pay bloody tribute every fifteen years, which is how long it took for humans to grow them to just the right tenderness. My master made me sit in one such tribute, covered in severed ears, for two weeks, in order to carry out a plan to defeat them. So marching an extra day to reach our destination doesn’t seem like so bad a thing, hmmm?”

“When I was learning the trade,” Jabba says, “we had to confirm every appraisal blindfolded, based solely on _taste_. After a string of deaths surrounding ancient poisoned pottery, though, the rules were relaxed, and we were allowed to go off of visual confirmations.”

“Before I invented saddles for dragons,” Joshua says, “we had to ride around in their mouths, as that was the only secure way to travel without risk of being dropped. Of course, if there was a rough landing, there were even odds you might bitten clean in half. Most disciplined riders, though, could manage it fine. We lost a lot more apprentices back then.”

“You are all terrible old men,” Hellion says, but she’s laughing all the same.

“And you’ve never stretched the truth, even a little?” Crowley asks.

Hellion snorts. “Not even a little.”

“So when you told Viki that when you were a girl, magic had to be cast through ritualistic bloodletting?”

Hellion cackles. “Oh, you heard that. Well, it’s just Viki. That hardly counts.”

They all laugh. The steam rises. They sigh in their collective age.

At the door, a pounding. And this time they sigh in their collective annoyance.

“Let me in, I say! I have every right to be in there with the rest of you!”

The voice is muffled through the door.

“When you’re sixty, Kun To,” Crowley shouts, “you will have every right to be in here. Until then, youngsters should wait patiently for their elders to finish their soak.”

“I’m _nearly_ sixty,” Kun To counters. “And the water’s only hot enough during Elder Time! It’s not fair, I say.”

“Oh, go hang out with Onil, why don’t you,” Hellion calls. “I’m sure you two young kids could find ways to stay warm until you’re old enough to join the adults.”

The others laugh, moving slowly around the jungle-themed pool.

“But Joshua doesn’t even look like he’s fifty!”

“That’s because _Joshua_ has a True Rune that keeps him from visually aging,” Joshua retorts. “When you are two hundred and twenty years old, look this good you will not.”

“This is blatant discrimination! How do you even know that I’m not 60? Maybe I just tell everyone that because I’m vain and want to keep myself available for _the ladies_. Maybe I’m actually 65!”

Jabba hums. “Well, there are of course ways of verifying a person’s age. We could get a sample of your bone, for instance, and compare it to known samples. That’s how it works in appraising.”

“No no no,” Mace says. “That requires the bones to be _outside_ the body. Bloody work, that. Rather, we should check the bone’s tensile strength by striking it with varying force with a hammer. Based on when it breaks or shatters, we’ll know the age.”

“I’ve heard that people are a bit like trees,” Maximillian says. “Perhaps if we cut off a foot, there would be rings we could count.”

“As a doctor I’ve not done extensive research into that,” Liukan says, “but I’d be willing to try it, to further the medical knowledge of the nation.”

“In my order, we verify age by having the subject stand on one leg with pales of water outstretched on either arm,” Fukien says. “Based on how long it takes them to pass out, we can determine the age.”

“For dragons,” Joshua says, “we can see it in their teeth. There’s a very specific rate at which they wear down. Humans shouldn’t be different. We’ll just remove some his teeth and measure them. That’s best!”

“Those are all lovely suggestions,” Hellion says. “But age can also be magically divined. Right, Crowley?”

“Oh yes!” he says with relish. “It’s an excruciating process where the person lives through their worst moments mentally while magic tests their very soul, sometimes breaking them apart entirely in the process. But it’s accurate down to the _day_. Can’t get any better than that.”

“Well,” Hellion says, “I think we should put it down to the man himself, given he’s the one seeking admittance. Kun To, which way would you prefer for us to check your age?”

At the door, only silence.

“That’s what I thought!” Hellion says, and they all laugh so hard the have to grip the edge of the bath to keep from falling over.

“I don’t know…” Liukan says. “That seems almost…mean? Do you think we should…apologize?”

Crowley scoffs. “Apologize? To that hooligan?”

“His feelings might be hurt,” Joshua says.

“And in three years we’ll have to let him in,” Jabba reminds them. “He might be out for revenge by then…”

“It might…honorable, to let him in early,” Maximillian says.

“And spiritually fulfilling,” Fukien adds.

“Hmmm…” Crowley says.

“Well I don’t know about the rest of you,” Hellion says. “But I might be _dead_ in three years. So I think I’ve earned the right to be a bit discerning. The rules are the rules. If we bend them for him, then we’ll ben them for Onil. And Kamandol. And…who know who else! Which might be nice and kind and _karmic_ or whatever, but would lead to a full bath indeed.”

“So we…?” Liukan asks.

“We let him _wait_. It’s more likely to kill us than him.”

Crowley cackles. “You’re a vicious old thing, you know that?”

“And don’t any of you forget,” she says, and settle into the heat of the bath. After all, Elder Bath Time is almost over, anyway. And given all their years of service, don’t they deserve a little peace, quiet, and spite?

**Author's Note:**

> Just like Suikoden III has the most children, I'm pretty sure that Suikoden I has the most "elders," here meaning characters over 60. I might be wrong on that, but it certainly feels true to me. Anyway, I thought it would be fun for them all the get together for their own little time, and I'm pleased with the result.


End file.
